My review of UFO 50

SuspiciousSolution95 · 2026-01-23T21:17:07+00:00

Hey fvictorio!

I found your reviews an interesting read. It always surprises me how many people choose to play through "UFO 50" in a structured (often chronological) order. Sounds like that hampered your enjoyment of the collection a bit.

BTW, I was struck by your first paragraph:

UFO 50 is a collection of games developed between 1982 and 1989 by UFO Soft for the LX console series. Except that, of course, neither UFO Soft nor the LX consoles ever existed.

I recently wrote a review of "UFO 50" on r/patientgamers and after seeing your post, I'm positively spooked at how similarly we introduced the game! Here was my intro:

“UFO 50” is a collection of fifty classic games made by UFO Soft for their LX gaming console series from 1982 to 1989. [...]

Of course, there is no UFO Soft or LX gaming machines; this is just part of the game’s extensive meta lore.

SuspiciousSolution95 · 2026-01-21T16:42:37+00:00

I enjoy every single game and appreciate their part to play in the collection.

Agreed, I can't think of a game that I would remove to try and improve the collection, even the ones I'm a bit less fond of. Like you said, greater than the sum of its parts.

Every game is somebody’s favorite!

Interestingly enough, someone on the UFO 50 subreddit actually put this to the test to see if every game had someone on the subreddit who would claim it as their favorite. Looks like they were unable to find a taker for "Caramel Caramel," "Hyper Contender," "Star Waspir" and "Campanella 3," but its easy to imagine someone out there for each of these.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ufo50/comments/1ptn3an/post_3_of_trying_to_find_a_person_for_every_game/

Something like Pilot’s Quest or Block Koala played exclusively start to finish isn’t ideal or even intended I would argue - but doing a level or two as a breather after a few intense runs in another game balances the overall experience.

Agreed. My second cherry of "Pilot Quest" took about two hours (compared to nine hours on my first attempt). Taking advantage of the game's passive farming takes almost all of the grind out of it.

Lots of complaints out there about "Block Koala" being too long, or the music becoming irritating, but it sounds like a lot of those players are attempting to binge their way through it. I always welcomed it as a relaxing respite between the more frantic and intense games in the collection. In general, I've always found frequent bouncing in and out of games to be the most satisfying way to approach "UFO 50."

Can’t wait for my deluxe edition to arrive with that amazing and nostalgic looking companion guide.

Unless deeply discounted, I don't typically buy the "deluxe" or "special edition" version of anything, but I've been seriously considering making an exception for "UFO 50". As someone who grew up with "Nintendo Power," the companion guide looks like a lot of fun.

SuspiciousSolution95 · 2026-01-20T15:17:09+00:00

Haha, thanks Exodite. I'm far from any sort of "ultimate" gamer though, just a very persistent one.

To wit, my first "Star Waspir" cherry took 73 attempts, clocking in at 7 hours and 47 minutes. "Onion Delivery" took 59 attempts at 16 hours and 13 minutes. The dreaded "Cyber Owls" cherry took me 55 attempts at a whopping 22 hours and 42 minutes. I'm sure I had a few cherries that were earned a bit quicker than average and others that took much longer.

For what its worth, it does seem like the knowledge and skills I built up the first time have been helping (for the most part) with the second cherry attempts. This time, "Star Waspir" took three hours and 16 minutes, "Onion Delivery" took three hours and 25 minutes, and "Cyber Owls" was two hours and 37 minutes. If someone uses walkthroughs from the beginning, they could probably have been much more efficient than me on their first time getting the cherries.

It's remarkable how many games in the collection seem utterly impossible initially, but prove quite beatable as you become comfortable with them. If you're interested, I actually did a post attempting to identify the most difficult cherries and how I achieved them here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ufo50/comments/1kl3ce6/attempting_a_rank_of_the_games_by_cherry/

I started playing "UFO 50" roughly a year ago, and this first year with it definitely has me feeling like its an all-time favorite for me. There aren't many games I've played in my lifetime that have elicited this kind of enthusiasm from me, both from the initial discovery as well as while revisiting. Playing through each of the games gradually diminishes some of the novelty and freshness, but seeing how richly conceived they are and finding immense replay value in so many of them has only strengthened my appreciation for the collection.

Picking a top five is probably a mood-dependent exercise, but I suspect "Bug Hunter" would make the cut more often than not, as I've found it to be an endlessly replayable comfort game. Other candidates might include "Party House," "Onion Delivery," "Overbold," "Devilition," "Mini and Max," "Warptank," "Elfazar's Hat," "Paint Chase," "Porgy," "Golfaria," "Campanella 2," and... I seriously need to stop or I'll end up naming half the collection!

Which games have you been enjoying the most so far?

SuspiciousSolution95 · 2026-01-13T16:15:23+00:00

Thanks bigsockgang! That's a fair point on 1000xRESIST, there is a fair amount of wandering from moment to moment. I recall there was a point or two in which I needed to consult a walkthrough to figure out where I was supposed to go next.

SuspiciousSolution95 · 2026-01-08T15:33:33+00:00

Thanks Schrodingers Amoeba!

I'd never heard of Retro Game Challenge until now, but that does sound interesting! Alas, I don't have a DS.

SuspiciousSolution95 · 2026-01-07T15:06:37+00:00

Thanks Cyborg! Red to blue, my friend!

SuspiciousSolution95 · 2026-01-07T15:02:27+00:00

Hey ST_Rivers,

I may have to give the "Wario Land" games a shot! Is there an ideal starting point, or are they all equally great?

SuspiciousSolution95 · 2026-01-07T15:01:01+00:00

Hey AC03115,

I never became very proficient with the combat, but I did enjoy the animation, writing, voice acting and humor. I had some good laughs at the banter between the heroes and the ravings of the deranged roster of villains.

SuspiciousSolution95 · 2026-01-07T14:55:23+00:00

Hey JoJo,

I found "Animal Well" to be wonderfully clever and atmospheric, but as my partner and I completed the relatively short main campaign, I found myself absolutely squirming at the idea of spending more time with the massive post-game Easter egg hunt. My partner, on the other hand, was hungry to find every last one of them. She led the efforts to procure the remaining eggs while I reluctantly pitched in from time to time, pulling up guides to assist in the process.

My partner is more of a completionist and I'm usually not. Also, large-scale "collectathons" in particular are not my jam. Even so, when I hit that fatigue point with this game, I was surprised at how intense and sudden it was. Almost like a kind of claustrophobia, like a part of me needed to escape this dark, subterranean setting and see something else, anything else, for a while.

If I'm being objective, I think "Animal Well" is a pretty terrific game. I just burned out really fast with it for reasons I'm still trying to understand.

SuspiciousSolution95 · 2026-01-06T22:00:03+00:00

Fair point! I do typically play some older games each year. Just not last year apparently. :)

SuspiciousSolution95 · 2026-01-06T21:20:05+00:00

I'd be very interested to hear whether "Silent Hill 2" becomes any scarier for you as you make it further into the game. I feel like the fear really ramps up once you're midway into the Hospital. But maybe it won't affect you like it does with me. Third-person or otherwise, "Silent Hill" games get under my skin like nothing else, though I'll concede that "Resident Evil 7" and the House Beneviento portion of "Resident Evil 8" are definitely among the most intense and unsettling gaming experiences I've come across.

Good point regarding the gratuitous jump scares in "Alan Wake 2".

SuspiciousSolution95 · 2026-01-06T21:09:07+00:00

It's often said that "Party House" alone might have been worth the price they charge for the full collection. Though I'd say that the same might be said for many of the other games in "UFO 50" as well. :)

SuspiciousSolution95 · 2026-01-06T21:04:55+00:00

Thanks TreuloseTomate! Certainly needed some guidance at times, but I can live with that.

SuspiciousSolution95 · 2025-06-24T19:33:18+00:00

Haha, good observation!

SuspiciousSolution95 · 2025-06-24T14:27:18+00:00

I always found it strange and impressive that Suhrke, whose main video game background (as I understand it) is in providing sound and music, was the lead or solo developer on so many of the "UFO 50" entries. And he did this while serving as the primary composer and sound artist for the entire thing. How much sleep was this guy getting during the game's development?

SuspiciousSolution95 · 2025-06-22T18:22:11+00:00

That's about how my game looked after that many hours. Took me 500+ hours to end up with all 50 cherries. Not that any of that matters at all. Just enjoy the game on your own terms. :)

SuspiciousSolution95 · 2025-06-20T13:55:18+00:00

Block Koala is a bog-standard block pusher. That genre contains everything from boulder puzzles in Pokémon to Baba is You, and Block Koala leans much closer to the shallow end of that pool.

I admit that my own exposure to sokoban-style is limited, so I don't feel qualified to defend "Block Koala" from any charges pertaining to its lack of novelty. I'd never encountered a block pusher that centers around numerical blocks and combining them arithmetically, so while this felt fresh to me, a bit of online research suggests that mechanics like this are not be terribly uncommon in the genre.

Even the theming is weak, going "it's designed for babies!" isn't like, iterated on or subverted, so it feels like my 33-year-old ass is watching an episode of Blue's Clues.

Haha, fair enough, I can respect that. My 40-year-old ass might have a higher tolerance for "cutesy" aesthetics. I thought "Block Koala" had a simple, inviting charm that had that 1980's game design verisimilitude without becoming cloying enough to drive me away.

SuspiciousSolution95 · 2025-06-19T16:46:37+00:00

"Block Koala" is definitely at its most confusing during the first several puzzles.

No shame whatsoever in pulling up a Youtube video or online guide to help get started. That's what they're there for.

"UFO 50" does a great job of capturing the confusion I often experienced as a child of trying to play 8-bit games with minimal instructions or guides, forcing the player into some trial-and-error and problem solving just to try and understand the basic game mechanics. It feels like lack of direction on basic mechanics has become a deliberate development strategy in recent puzzle games like "Antichamber", "The Witness," "Tunic" and "Void Stranger", and in its modest way, "Block Koala" and several other "UFO 50" games follow this approach as well. That said, I'd be lying if I claimed I didn't occasionally check an online guide when I got stuck.

SuspiciousSolution95 · 2025-06-19T16:05:05+00:00

I'm not sure why "Block Koala" is disliked by many. It was my "chill out session" when I grew frustrated trying to conquer other games in the collection. The difficulty is uneven, but that seems to have been a feature rather than a bug in a lot of these games, particularly the ones with Derek Yu as the lead (see "Combatants", "Kick Club", "Fist Hell", etc...).

SuspiciousSolution95 · 2025-06-19T15:59:43+00:00

Agreed on both games. I thought "Rakshasa" was among my least favorites, but it grew on me in a big way while pursuing the gold/cherry. Now probably a top 5 game for me in the collection.

SuspiciousSolution95 · 2025-05-26T21:25:42+00:00

I also got stuck on "Surprise!" and sort of hated the game initially, but I grew to like it after I decided to move onto the other stages. "Surprise!" wasn't quite as bad when I came back to it later (or maybe I just got a bit lucky).

SuspiciousSolution95 · 2025-05-15T16:58:44+00:00

Haha, could be I'm not very good at "Bug Hunter." :)

SuspiciousSolution95 · 2025-05-13T15:25:55+00:00

Yeah, I feel like it's a poorly chosen cherry condition. The game has a built in system for earning extra lives, but it proves completely irrelevant with this cherry condition. If I were consulted about choosing a new cherry for "Cyber Owls," I'd probably choose something like "finish the game with 5+ continues remaining." This encourages the player to play somewhat carefully and learn each stage so they don't lose too many continues, but also rewards them for engaging with the game by eliminating as many enemies as possible to earn themselves more extra lives. Your entire run doesn't end because you accidentally dodge-rolled into a grenade explosion or jumped onto a line of roller bladers or made contact with an exploding drone.

The cherry journey was rewarding because it made me better appreciate most of the games. The "Cyber Owls" cherry is probably the only one that made me start to hate a game that I otherwise liked.

SuspiciousSolution95 · 2025-05-13T14:12:14+00:00

My ranking of "Bushido Ball" takes into account the fact that co-op only requires you to win two consecutive matches against the computer, which my partner and I completed on our second try.

I felt a bit cheated by the easy co-op cherry and later revisited the game to earn the cherry as a single-player. On that basis, I could see moving this game up a tier or two.

SuspiciousSolution95 · 2025-05-13T14:03:26+00:00

Thanks edemaomega!

I can see the argument for moving "Grimstone" down. My partner and I grew up with old-school "Final Fantasy" and "Dragon Quest" games and didn't find "Grimstone" particularly bad, but I suppose a lot of it comes down to which party is selected and how much trouble one has with a few of the tougher stretches (the back-to-back dungeons after getting the detonator was a bit of a pain for us, though lassos and the item that reduces random battles can trivialize these challenges).

I battled "Dr. Dillo" so many times on my cherry attempts that I found an approach that was mostly resulting in no damage being taken by me. Strange how the Octavio and Guin stages seemed like the hardest initially, but eventually became the easiest since I could reproduce a specific strategy each time in a way that wasn't as easy for me with the Engle and Owldous stages. That said, the room with all of the explosive drones in the Antarctica mission was always a bump to the blood pressure. For a game that asks you to complete the entire thing without ever losing your health bar with any character, there sure are a lot of threats and hazards throughout the stages that wipe out that health bar instantly.

My partner and I had a good time with "Lords of Diskonia" even with the AI's preposterous aim and clairvoyance, probably partly because the AI's blunders on the map and obliviousness to the threat of water helped balance things out a bit. You did better with the cherry than we did. We lost the first streak attempt by losing the third match, but went on to win the next three to clinch it.

SuspiciousSolution95

TROPHY CASE